1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally directed to a system for controlling interconnection of optical fibers. More particularly, the present invention is directed to using status information of modules employed in the interconnection to control movement of the optical fibers through the process, to optimizing the use of modules employed in the interconnection using fuzzy logic control architecture, and to providing information regarding the operation of the modules to a user through a graphical user interface.
2. Description of Related Art
An apparatus which can integrate the various steps of an optical fiber interconnection process, including automating the handling and processing of the optical fibers during the optical fiber interconnection process, whether a fusion process or a connectorization process, is disclosed in commonly assigned, co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/048,331, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,122,936, filed on Mar. 26, 1998 entitled xe2x80x9cApparatus for Integrating Steps of a Process for Interconnecting Optical Fibersxe2x80x9d which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. While this apparatus provides more efficient and uniform processing than previously available, further refinement on the automation is desired. In particular, there exists a need to control the movement of fibers through the system in accordance with the availablity of the modules. There further exists a need to optimize the use of the modules and other resources and the various tasks associated therewith. There also exists a need to display information regarding the operation of the modules to a user in a readily comprehensible form.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to optimize the use of modules in an apparatus for interconnecting optical fibers.
It is another object of the present invention to use status information of the modules to control the movement of the optical fibers through the interconnecting process.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a user with readily comprehensible information regarding the operation of modules in an apparatus for interconnecting optical fibers.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an architecture which can adapt the interconnecting for different types of optical fibers.
At least one of the above and other objects may be realized by providing a method for controlling an optical fiber interconnection processing system having a plurality of modules including polling all modules to be used during interconnection processing to determine a status of each module, determining an overall status of the optical fiber interconnection processing system based on said polling, and moving optical fibers through the interconnection processing system in accordance with the overall status.
The polling may include determining if a module being polled is working properly, determining if an optical fiber is positioned in a module being polled, determining if an optical fiber positioned in a module being polled is in good condition, and/or determining if a module being polled is busy. At least two optical fibers, of the same or of different types, may be processed simultaneously. The moving may be discrete between modules and the method may further include prioritizing the moving between modules using fuzzy logic based on the overall status.
At least one and other objects of the present invention may be realized by providing a computerized system for monitoring progress of optical fibers through an interconnection processing apparatus including a graphical user interface including a representation of modules in the interconnection processing apparatus and an identification of any optical fiber currently associated with a represented module tagged to that corresponding module.
The graphical user interface may further include a window displaying data of fibers having completed processing by the interconnection processing apparatus. The window may display data regarding optical fibers which have successfully been processed by the interconnection processing apparatus in one portion thereof and data regarding optical fibers which have not successfully been processed by the interconnection processing apparatus in another portion thereof. The graphical user interface may further include, when a module is selected, a window displaying a status of the module being selected. The graphical user interface may further include, when a module is selected, a window displaying parameters used in the processing performed by the module being selected. The representations of the modules may be arranged in an order in which they would be used in the interconnection processing apparatus.
At least one of the above and other objects may be realized by a method for controlling an optical fiber interconnection processing apparatus including determining a rule base for controlling the apparatus, setting a membership function for each module and each task performed thereby in the optical fiber interconnection processing apparatus, and moving optical fibers through the optical fiber interconnection processing apparatus in accordance the rule base and the membership functions.
The membership function for a module may represent a level of availability of the module. The membership function for a task may represent a level of completeness of the task.
At least one of the above and other objects may be realized by an apparatus for controlling an optical fiber interconnection processing system including a plurality of modules including a supervisory controller in communication with each of the modules, the supervisory controller receiving status information from each module and determining an overall status of the interconnection processing system and a handling device delivering optical fibers to the modules in accordance with the overall status, the handling device being in communication with the supervisory controller.
When the overall status indicates more than one fiber is being processed simultaneously, the supervisory controller may prioritize movement of the more than one fiber by the handling device in accordance with the overall status. When a loading deck module provides information regarding fiber type to the supervisory controller, and when the overall status indicates more than one type of fiber is being processed simultaneously, the supervisory controller may prioritize movement of the more than one type of fiber by the handling device in accordance with the overall status.